Manuel José Othón

Born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, on June 14, 1858, Manuel José Othón began writing poetry when he was thirteen. He published his first book under the pseudonym Poesias at age twenty-one, and published a second poetry

Wild Idyll

by Manuel José Othón (1858–1906)

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16

What brought you to my frozen solitude,

overshadowed by the dying rack

of a grey twilight? . . . Behold the scene,

arid, sad, immeasurably sad.

If you come from sorrow, if your heart

on sorrow feeds, I bid you welcome to

the savage wilderness, where scarce a mirage

of that which was my youth remains behind.

But if perchance you come from less afar

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